Laura Stuart: Can the Solidarity Movement Contain Apologists ?

As an activist against Human Rights abuses, particularly of the sort that the Nazi style entity called Israel inflicts on Palestinians on a daily basis, I have been fortunate to be involved in some direct actions which were very effective in exposing among other things the illegal collective punishment on one and a half million Palestinians a.k.a. the Siege of Gaza. More recently I have had the privilege to attend many lectures by intellectuals on various subjects relating to zionism and it's evil ideology. A learning process which often finds me agreeing with most of what someone states as the issues facing Palestinians but perhaps not always agreeing on how each person or group sees the solution, such as was the case with the amazing Dr Norman Finkelstein lecture recently.

All protests, flotillas, convoys and lectures feature people of different religions (or none) from a broad spectrum of political backgrounds, yet amazingly there is a huge amount of solidarity across the board with everyone contributing in many different ways within their own area of expertise. The common thread holding us all together is a firm belief in Truth and Justice.

The Meir Institute report after the Mavi Marmara particularly noted, to their great consternation that Muslims (Islamists as they call politically active muslims) and people from every kind of religious and political background were able to unite against the common enemy of Zionist oppression. This is the real meaning of Solidarity.

Muslims in particular are keenly aware that Zionists are actively engaged in oppressing Muslims in the west as well as in Palestine. One only has to read Zionists blogs to understand that their main obsession is Islam, and their main activity is trying to provoke never ending war between western powers and Muslim countries. The Fox/Werrity/Gould agenda of pushing for war on Iran exposes the money and power behind the decisions that western governments take and why. The recent report by Spin Watch called "The Cold War on British Muslims", into lobby groups such as Policy exchange and the Centre for Social Cohesion expose another agenda of increasing suspicion against Muslims in the U.K. promoting fear of terrorism from Muslims and increasingly an agenda of restricting personal freedoms for everyone in the name of security.

All activists who expose the truth about Zionist politics and the racial supremacy which is integral to that ideology are labelled as anti semitic, a bit of research uncovers the driving forces behind the changing definition of what anti semitism is. Groups such as C.S.T. want the British government to adopt the E.U. working document on anti semitism which has never been used and would make anyone critical of Israel and it's policies anti semitic. When I look at the websites of my local M.P.'s I find they attend C.S.T. annual dinners and in the case of Mike Freer even get named as a "Friend" of CST. It is frightening to discover that lobby groups whose primary interest is a foreign country's security and expansionist agenda, and whose policies continue to cause so much death and human suffering in the region, even when it leads to our government waging illegal wars and the death of millions of innocents not to mention the British soldiers who are operating at the heart of British Politics, by now we the British public should be very concerned.

With the amount of funding that our government receives from wealthy Jewish business men and with wealthy Jewish business men donating heavily to Jewish interest lobby groups, it is no surprise that pro Palestine Campaigners are up against a formidable force. Not only do we have to expose and take on the Israeli government but we also have to expose and take on the Western governments as well. How simple would it be for Western Governments to insist that Israel would comply with International Law and so bring an end to a lot of misery and suffering of the Palestinians, but Governments such as the U.K. for one seem terminally helpless when it comes to Israel.

Realising that Zionist interests are not contained within Israel/Palestine alone but reach out and shape western foreign policy, means that there can be no peace, as long as the Zionist agenda is the oppression and complete subjugation of billions of people, every single one whom they believe is a security threat, or at least wish to portray as such.

To be successful against the Zionist machine we have one weapon in our favour and that is solidarity, every person following alternative media and who discovers the truth about injustice and the perpetrators of oppression finds it difficult to sit and do nothing. As a Muslim I have to operate within Islamic methodology, the left wing activists have their own views and they don't agree with some of our religious restrictions, however, on the whole we do not attack each other publicly or seek to disown, distance or discredit each other. A chain is as strong as it's weakest link, and sadly at this time we are witnessing a weak link right at the head of the PSC leadership. Some statements of appeasement to Zionists have been made by PSC leadership, this immediately led to another article on Zionist blogs which condemned the statement, twisting it's words and saying it was not enough. Even more worrying, is the fact that PSC leadership have released a statement saying they do not work with Gilad Atzmon. Why ? What possible reason is there for that statement? The immediate result was further comments on Zionists blogs asking well if the PSC is distancing themselves from Gilad Atzmon why don't they distance themselves from Sheik Raed Salah? In reality Gilad Atzmon has huge support at PSC branches around the UK.

You see now? There can be no appeasement, there can be no weakest link, anything said to curry favour with Zionists fails miserably and only creates more demands. Gilad Atzmon is not anti semitic or his book would not be endorsed by some of the top humanists of our time. Sheik Raed Salah is also not anti semitic and the accusations against him made by the very dubious translations of CST failed to stand up to scrutiny.

Some very good activists have been encouraged to fall on their swords by the PSC leadership because they hold views where they would wish some aspects of the holocaust to be re-examined. If they are not using a PSC platform to express those views why is it any business of the PSC? For example if I believe the only solution to the Israel/Palestine situation is global jihad, isn't that my business as long as I am not saying it is PSC policy or using my position within the PSC to promote that view?

There is an endless witch hunt going on in the UK by Zionists and a very small group of particularly venomous anti Zionists who want to control every group of activists including those activists personal views. It is very shameful, but by now equally well known that the small group of anti Zionists are like a cancer within the movement, writing vile accusations on blogs and in emails about people (including me) and phoning people up insisting to control who speaks or performs in public. Recently we saw how even men of the cloth were subject to a concerted hate campaign to halt a jazz concert, an action which had echos of the Third Reich's censorship of Jazz players in Nazi Germany. It was no surprise to me (an ex Christian) when the Dean of Bradford tried to appease all sides in the dispute and ended up looking very wobbly and upsetting everyone.

There has to be real belief in our hearts that we are able to stand firm in the onslaught of lies, libelous blogs and in my case even anonymous and threatening emails but if I can withstand those rather sinister attacks then surely for those who are leaders within the movement, it should be like water off a ducks back.

We now are at a crisis point, the leadership of the PSC has to firm up, because the vultures are already circling in the belief that the solidarity has been broken and the movement is falling apart.